Point of View Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Activism With a Little Kink and Human Sexuality Thrown In

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Citizenlink Tackles Pornography

Sometimes I'm at a loss at where to start with these things, so I will opt for honesty. CitizenLink is exactly what you'd expect from a conservative website devoted to producing "news." Their data and sources are often misrepresented legitimate studies at best and cherry picked figures from discredited researchers at worst. It is essentially exactly what you would expect the news arm of Focus on the Family to be. So this is...not a good study by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact, the first few sentences start positing conspiracy theories on the mainstream media's agenda on advancing the reach of the porn industry. And it seems that if you're trying to promote something as an objective study, your argument is only weakened by using terms such as "empty online sexuality," to describe the position you disagree with. But let's move on.

"Pornography use appears to be the greatest among college-age men, presumably driven by lax social morals found on university campuses and the departure from family rules and restrictions on Internet use." Come on CitizenLink! You're not even trying. Nor were they when mentioning that "a 2001 study of 506 undergraduate students from a public university in Texas found that 56 percent of men had ever accessed sexually explicit materials (SEM) on the Internet." Because when you want to use something representative of America, a public university buried in one of the most conservative states is a good choice. At least they posted some more realistic data (that 72% of college aged men view porn via the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, a far more encompassing source) in the next sentence.

Of course CitizenLink has little commentary to offer on these figures, saving their valuable words for data that supports the point the want to make, that porn viewership is somewhat rare. A Zogby poll (hey remember the guys that so thoroughly blew forecasting the results of the 2008 Presidential election?) commissioned by Focus on the Family (ugh) found that only 21% of people said they had ever visited a sexually oriented website. Can you believe that? I didn't think so. Unsurprisingly they did not post a source for this mythical poll among their 20 other footnotes.

CitizenLink can only be forced to conclude that pornography usage rates are alarming whether they're lower than believed or not because of pornography's effect on intimate relationships. Like how viewers of pornography have been shown to be more likely to think women should be protected from harm. Wait what? Or that the states with the highest instances of rape also have the least access to internet pornography and vice versa . Um... Or that resisting the urge to view a healthy amount of pornography may "strengthen the urge to view it and exacerbate sexual problems."

In what I'm sure would be the words of CitizenLink...well...shit...
(Just kidding, their words would probably be something about moral degradation brought upon by the liberal media, or something. Enjoy some titties.)